Outsourcing: the importance of understanding where you work

While travelling around we recently spotted a sign nearby a water drinking source.

At first glance the sign appears totally in order, both in the original language, and in the translated English.

However, native English speakers would likely note that “All sorts of pollution is banned” does not quite resolve the problem.

Indeed “All Sorts” is not fully exclusive or inclusive.

For instance, “We accept all sorts of payment options here”, would immediately lead most English speakers to assume that most (or the majority) of the payment options were available, but not all.

So excluding “all sorts of pollution” is not the same as excluding “all pollution”.

When it comes to outsourcing, we frequently see many companies offering a solution that looks great on the surface, but when you delve deeper you see a cultural and country mismatch.

And it’s likely that we can surmise that generally these options may work reasonably ok for a while, but at the end the instance of miscommunication due to cultural differences is large. And this is when the problems start to surface.

Certainly, if you are paying for a cheaper option than others, then you have the right to expect miscommunication. And if you are training your own (overseas) staff, then “yes” might actually mean “I haven’t got a clue, but I’ll do what you ask, even though I don’t understand what I’m doing”.

For more on how we’ve managed to solve these issues, drop us a line, and we’ll be happy to chat more about how 15 years in the Australian tax compliance Outsourcing services area has enabled us to emerge as the market leader in Australian tax compliance Outsourcing to Australian accounting firms.